


Arms Around the Past

by dismalzelenka



Series: A Song in the Stillness [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Accidental Nose Breakage, Accidental Voyeurism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Jail Cell Sex, Kirkwall Disasters, Light Dom/sub, Rare Pairings, Red Hawke, Reunion Sex, Rough Healing Magic, Sub!Hawke, dom!Samson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-13 05:04:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13563426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dismalzelenka/pseuds/dismalzelenka
Summary: Marian Hawke hasn't seen her old Kirkwall flame in three years. When she heard he was Corypheus's general, she knew whatever they had was definitely over. When she finds her phylactery at the Shrine of Dumat with a note from him saying his one red lyrium regret was never having a chance to be worthy of her, she cries herself to sleep every night for weeks.And then he's in the Skyhold dungeons, and she has one chance to bribe the guards into letting her having a few minutes alone with a man she thought she knew.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a DWC post in response to the prompt "arms wrapped around you when hope seemed far away" for any character of my choosing. 
> 
> First DWC fic, pls be gentle! :D

“Samson.” 

"Go away, Hawke.”

Marian shook the bars of Samson’s Skyhold prison cell. “Samson.” 

“Fuck off.” 

“Maker-fucking… _Raleigh!_ ” she snarled, hurling a ball of flame that dissipated against the wall by his bedroll with a hiss, right next to his left ear. He didn’t even flinch; he just stared at her from the cot with his eyebrows raised like a particularly lazy, almost-interested house cat. 

“Back on a first name basis, are we?” he growled. “Thought them days was over with, little bird.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Marian whispered, gripping the bars with white knuckles and forcing the tears to stay contained. “Raleigh. Do you know how much shit I went through for them to let me down here alone?”

He looked up, greasy hair plastered to his face with sweat, hands afflicted with lyrium tremors, but his eyes were ever defiant. “Why are you here, Marian?” 

“Fuck you, Raleigh. You know why I’m here.” She knelt by the lock, pulled two pins hidden in her hair, and soon the  cell door was swinging open. 

He eyed her coolly. “And if I make a break for it now?”

Marian shrugged. “You won’t get far. Unless you fancy a tumble down the Frostbacks that starts with a…” she peered over the crumbled floor. “Fifty foot freefall, by my generous estimate?”

She closed the cell door again and wedged her staff between the bars. “You had me in the palm of your hand, Raleigh.” She lifted the vial hanging around her neck, glowing red against her skin. “You could have led Corypheus to us the second you heard I was in Orlais.” She tucked her phylactery back into her shirt and stared at him. “But you didn’t.” 

“I see Maddox left you my note, then.” 

“Shit thing you did there, by the way, leaving your parting words to me with a man on his deathbed.” Marian glared at him. “I didn’t know what we’d find at the Shrine of Dumat, but I can sure as fuck tell you we were not expecting to find the Champion of Kirkwall’s phylactery and a sad farewell letter from her former lover in the hands of the Red General’s Tranquil.” She huffed and sat on the cot next to him, ignoring how he flinched away from her presence. “I had a lot of explaining to do after we left that place, you know,” she grumbled. 

Samson laughed at that, a low, gravelly laugh deep in his chest, and if Marian closed her eyes for a moment, she could pretend they were back in the dockside shanty in Kirkwall. Liquored up and drunk on each other. Maker’s balls, she’d missed that laugh. “Of course you would take the best way I had of protecting you and find a way to be damn sore over it.” 

“It’s a gift, _Ser_ ,” she jabbed. She didn’t even know if her jabs were in jest or meant to wound. The lines had always blurred with the two of them, even before. It was the only language they’d known for a long time. 

“You know what we had back then…” he trailed off, his voice suddenly serious and painfully honest sounding. “That ain’t something we can get back. I’m not that man anymore, little bird. I’m an old husk of a person who spent the last of the years I had left in me fighting for something that’s never gonna happen. There’s nothing left for you here.”

Marian grabbed his shoulders and glared at him, her face only inches from his. “After all these years, how _dare_ you know what’s good for me?” She reared a hand back to slap him, but even with the weakness and the lyrium shakes he somehow managed to intercept her wrist and grip it tight enough to drain the blood from her fingers.The gasp slipped from her mouth before she could hold it in, and the seconds that ticked by excruciatingly slowly filled the entire room with tension. 

Samson broke the silence first with a chuckle. “Knew _that_ used to be good for you. Looks like some things haven't changed, have they girl?” He reached his other hand up to where she still gripped his shoulder and slowly peeled her wrist off of his body, bringing both of her hands into one of his where he held her wrists together with a broad, coarse hand. 

“Raleigh,” Marian whispered through gritted teeth, “I missed you, alright? I missed you so much, and I wish I could say what you did under Corypheus’s banner made me feel differently, because then I wouldn’t have to deal with feeling so maker-damned _selfish_ and _broken_ but I missed you more than I thought I could miss anything. Anyone.

"When the Inquisition sent people to fight you, I prayed to a Maker I don’t even believe in to keep you alive so I could see you one day and tell you how damnably stupid you were being myself. I don’t care about what we had _then_ , you daft son of a bitch. I want _you_. You as you are, not some idiotic daydream kept in the back of a young girl’s fever dreams. Hasn’t that been the entire _point_ of us being together from the day we met?” She squirmed when she realized she was practically in his lap at this point. “I clawed my way out of the Fade for you. I _need_ you,” she whispered. “Don’t take that from me because you’re too full of self loathing to see the forest for the trees.”

“Ri-” His voice carried a familiar tone of warning, of rebuke, and something in it broke something loose in her.  
  
“No!” she sobbed, and the tears were flowing freely now as she yanked her hands free and threw her arms around his neck. “ _Damn_ It, Raleigh, don’t push me away right now, not unless you really mean it.”

“Ri, I’m an old man living on naught but borrowed time,” he said gruffly. “There’s no hope for a future with me. You have so much to live for now. Don’t waste your years on…on me.”

“Then tell me you want nothing to do with me anymore.” She sniffled and glared at him. “Say it to my face. Tell me to leave and never speak to you again.”

His eyes flickered toward the ground. 

“ _Say it!_ ” Marian hissed. “Fucking say it so we can end this pissing match and call it a day!” 

“Marian, I told enough lies to enough people. I ain’t doing it with you too.” 

“Thirteen years.” She sank into him, defeated, and this time his arms caught her. “How,” she whispered, “could you call this a waste?” 

“I’m a damn fool, little bird. Always been.”

His lips tasted of sweat, lyrium, and an earthy blend of healing herbs he’d been given for the headaches and the shakes. Marian held on as tightly as she could without hurting him - because now, in his current state, she very well could, and that was a risk she wasn’t about to test - and her kiss told him exactly where he could _broken?_ shove his opinions. When her fingers tangled in his greasy hair, she clung to it like a life raft, because he was real, this was _real_ , and he was battered and bruised but  Never. Raleigh Samson wasn’t a man who broke. He was the fucking Cockroach of Kirkwall (courtesy of Varric), a maker-damned survivor, and she would not let him drown himself in his own self loathing. 

So she clung to him. His hope, as he once was hers. Breathed with him, as he once did for her. Closed her eyes and _lived_ for him, because she needed him to understand his life - _their_ lives  - were worth fighting for. 

He didn’t say anything else, but the way his hands held tightly to her back in return was, for tonight, enough. 


	2. Part 2 ;D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marian's reunion with Raleigh gets heated as they both remember what they've gone so long without. 
> 
> This two part fic has officially been updated to Explicit.

“Ri,” Samson gasps. “Fuck, I'd missed you.”

Hawke leans into him as she straddles his lap, both arms hooked around his bony shoulders. “Told you what an idiot you were being,” she whispers, her forehead touching his, her lips moving against his mouth. She claims him again, her tongue teasing at his lips - Maker, they're so chapped and she can taste dried blood and lyrium lingering on his skin - but she doesn't care, and she moans when he meets her tongue with his own.

Samson’s kisses are full of contradictions. He kisses with a wild sense of reckless abandon, but he's strangely gentle too, lips nipping lightly against her skin but never enough to draw blood, not on her face. He is careful and reserved and _reverent_ with her lips. He treats her like an altar and worships her; his lips kneel before her in supplication from a man begging forgiveness and praying he is worthy of her presence.

His hands have no such reserve. They wander up her shirt with pent up lust, calloused fingers trailing across every curve, claiming her flesh with pinches and squeezes. He grabs her breasts roughly, fingertips finding stiff nipples and rolling them between his fingers until she utters a breathy cry of need, “Raleigh, Raleigh _please_ -”

She grinds her hips against his pelvis. His hardened length is pressing against her heat, and two layers of clothes between them are entirely two many. A whine escapes her lips, and he claps a hand over her mouth with a crooked grin.

“Quiet now, little bird. Best not let the guards catch you rutting on the most hated prisoner in this miserable place.”

She bites his hand, and he withdraws it with a hiss. “I'll be doing more than that soon enough,” she purrs into his ear, and the shiver that runs through his body sends dampness blooming between her thighs.

He kisses her again, then again, his lips fluttering against her chin, her neck, her collarbone now exposed from the way he's knocked her shirt askew. She makes an irritated noise and yanks the shirt above her head, hitting him squarely in the nose with her elbow.

“Fucking bloody nug tits,” he swears. “Figures you'd break a man's nose during a pity fuck.”

She bristles at his words for a moment, but catches the cheeky glint in his eye and realizes he's taunting her, and suddenly everything feels even more right and normal and she's overwhelmed with the urge to sink to her knees and beg for his cock like she would have done in Kirkwall.

But she resists. Their sparring match has only just begun, and she has three years of silence to make up for.

“What's wrong, old man?” she says, breathless with arousal. “Can't take a little pain anymore?”

His eyes narrow, pupils blown wide with desire. “Keep that up, little bird, and I'll show you pain,” he growls, punctuating his threat with a rough pinch to a nipple that makes her yelp. She can tell from the way he's grinding on her that he, too, is feeling the call of the sexually laden animosity that's always fueled their lovemaking, but his grip is weaker these days, his arms trembling with the exertion of holding her upright. She presses her hands into his shoulders and forces a blast of healing magic through his body.

He doesn't expect the spell, nor for it to happen so quickly and all at once. Marian has never been a gentle healer. With Anders practically her brother-in-law, she's been forced to learn basic healing magic, but she'd always lacked the delicate touch of a healer’s hands. Her healing is all battlefield triage, tendons and muscle and flesh all but forced together, fatigue yanked from the body like a dirty bedsheet, and it's _never_ comfortable. Samson grunts and winces in pain, but she steadies her grip on his arms and holds him tightly - reassuringly - as he shudders and convulses in her arms.

“Bloody tits of Andraste,” he mutters when the worst of the magic wave has passed. His nose is no longer bleeding, and the tremors in his hands have stopped. “You've a fucking gift for foreplay.”

Marian grins and nips at his ear. “Does being mounted by a dirty mage turn you on, old man?”

He grabs her hand and holds it against his cock. “Not any dirty mage, little bird,” he growls. “ _My_ dirty little mage.”

She whimpers at that, trembling at the way his voice rumbles in his chest. _My dirty little mage_. Fuck. He's trying to kill her with that voice. She feels the fight draining out of her as he grips her hand and rubs it against his length.

_No. Not yet_. Her body is begging for her to submit, but she wants to stretch this power struggle out for as long as possible.

She lets a short burst of energy spark from her fingers, and he hisses with pain a split second before the full weight of a lyrium-fueled Silence slams into her. She goes limp in his arm, ears ringing, body trembling, and Maker _fuck_ she is so wet. It was always like this in Kirkwall; she'd goad him, he'd fight back, and when he won (because he always did), he would claim her, over and over until she was spent and sobbing his name into the grimy blankets on his bedroll.

This piece of history she is all too happy to repeat.

He picks her up, as if on cue, and turns around, slamming her on the cot with one hand around her throat. “Not a word if you know what's good for you, girl,” he growled as his fingers work open the ties on her trousers and yank them down around her ankles. Marian whimpers again when he tightens his grip on her neck and trails a finger across her navel down to her slit. “You're so wet for me, little bird. Right dripping like a good girl.”

“Please,” she whispers, hips bucking against his hand.

“Please, what?”

“Please, Ser,” she grits out. “Please fuck me.”

He teases her then, slowly sliding one finger into her. “Don't know if you deserve that yet, little bird.” His touch is infuriatingly gentle, and she whines and grinds against him again. He claps his free hand over her mouth before she can say anything. “I said quiet, and I mean it,” he warns.

Two fingers now, crooked forward ever so slightly, and Marian feels stars explode behind her eyelids. She is so close, and his fingers are pumping in and out of her, and all she wants is more, more, _please_ more.

When he pushes three fingers into her, his thumb finds her clit and soon she shatters into pieces, her cries muffled against his palm as she rides wave after wave of pleasure he wrings from her mercilessly with his hand.

“Raleigh,” she moans weakly.

They are interrupted by the sound of the door banging open.

“Champion!” a voice calls, frantic and out of breath. “We heard shouting, are you alri-”

The guard freezes as he turns and sees the two of them.

“Not a word,” Marian growls. Her glare is legendary, and the guard quails under her gaze.

When he doesn't move, she hurls a fireball at the wall beside him. “Out!” she yells, and he scrambles to obey. They hear the door close again, followed by hurried footsteps pounding up the stairs.

“What a fucking cock blocker,” she grumbles. Samson only chuckles, and for a moment he drops his mask and trails a hand along her thigh, rubbing affectionate circles on her skin with his thumb.

“I've missed that foul mouth of yours,” he admits with a grin. Maker, she's missed that grin. She's missed the way it lights up his eyes and pulls the wrinkles on his face to the corners of his mouth. She reaches up and brushes the pads of her fingers along his face, and then closes her fingers around his throat.

“Hurry up and fuck me,” she hisses.

He peels her fingers from his throat and holds both of her wrists down together with one hand against the scratchy wool blankets. He seals his lips over hers and devours her, and she shivers in anticipation when she hears the rustle of his trousers.

“You’re mine,” he whispers, easing himself into her slowly, excruciatingly slowly, one hand clapped over her mouth again as he stares into her eyes. The ring of red around his pale eyes shakes her to her core, but she clenches around him all the same. Behind the red, behind the metallic ringing of corruption lingering just under the surface of his skin, he’s still there, he’s still him. She can feel it in the way he fucks her, in the way his breath ghosts over her lips, in the soft, fluttering motion of his eyelashes against her collarbone when he finally drops his mantle of control and loses himself in her.

“Yours,” she agrees. For a moment she forgets she is in his cell. She forgets why he’s there and how he ended up in this place entirely. The lyrium takes away memories, he’s always told her, but he has a funny way of making _her_ forget, and she loves him for it.

There’s always time for apologies later, she decides.

They’re buttoning themselves back up when Cullen strides into the dungeons with that pained expression on his face.

“Hello, Commander,” she says with a grin. She squeezes Samson’s hand behind her back before shouldering her staff and strolling straight past Cullen to the main door leading back to the courtyard.

Because oh, yes, there will _definitely_ be a later.

**Author's Note:**

> gods I love my two Kirkwall disasters and their gritty, messy, and unflinchingly honest relationship. a meeting of dumpster fires, a melding of flames, a collision of two hot messes that somehow makes both of them better. 
> 
> yay for angsty rarepairs.


End file.
